Bosterson

? I think people in countries with socialized health care are pretty happy about it.

Sheesh, forget I mentioned it. Work is boring. Can we go back to discussing the "problems" with the scientific method now?

Wait - which one does that make you?

Seriously, unless he is INCREDIBLY stupid (always a possibility), he's just trying to piss you off. Note the lack of specificity in any of his assertions. Do you really do something with leather and whips, or just as part of your yellow/rubberier persona?

i don't recall saying that i had any specific problem with the scientific method; i simply noted that there are various arguments surrounding the issue. This sounds like an invocation of the vague yet "well known" problems surrounding evolution. I conclude that Kimmo is either trolling or else has a very serious head injury that may require immediate medical attention.

Are you some sort of BDSM rubber duck biologist? That's hot.

Are we talking about disagreements on how to interpret statistical results (probabilities, error boundaries, etc.)? Or do you have some sort of fundamental problem with the scientific method (eg, solipsism)? both, and then some. As much as I want to infer depth from your monosyllabic one-sentence responses, do you want to go ahead and back any of this up with at the very LEAST a description of what you're referring to?

if that were the case, then her child would be safe, since it was immunized. Immunity is not 100%, but really what you seem to be implying is that we should only look out for our own self-interest. If your kid has some candy, I'm totally stealing it.

Are we talking about disagreements on how to interpret statistical results (probabilities, error boundaries, etc.)? Or do you have some sort of fundamental problem with the scientific method (eg, solipsism)?

I think her point about un-immunized children posing a risk is that if you and a bunch of other people decide not to immunize, you lower the rate of herd immunity, possibly below its optimal threshold, which would then allow diseases to spread more easily.

Seriously? How does that relate to politics? Sorry, that's what I was actually referring to. I'm sure it sucks for all involved, but it's not a political matter. (And if you're using that as a justification for questioning the politician's integrity, see the whole previous discussion about personal privacy.)

I figured that the Republican party's claims to godliness and morality had been ironically disproved so many times at this point that no one paid any attention anymore. Actually I don't know why anyone would pay any attention to any political party's claims to moral values. What a meaningless concept that is, especially for them.

Funny question: even though belief in some sort of invisible pink unicorn/sky fairy is totally inexplicable and "obviously" smacks of some sort of delusion or mental illness, do you ever think about the fact that something like 90% of the world's population believes in "god," making those of us in the other 10% the extreme outliers? Statistically speaking, we're the weird ones...

I think what that makes him is an "idiot." We already have enough of those in government.

hmmm, i'm pretty sure he lied at some point, right? but that wasn't the issue for me; the issue was rob's flippant attitude towards behaviour that causes immense pain in many families. Seriously? How does that relate to politics?

I think you should run the numbers on that one, and if it checks out, push for federally funded concubines for civil servants. I'll bet the rest of the world would pony up the money for it if it seems like it'll reduce our propensity for invading/conquering other countries and killing people.

yeah i'm sure most people would have confidence in someone to honestly handle government affairs if that person lies to their family.... real integrity there, oh boy. I'm pretty sure everyone lies to someone (including their family) about something, even priests and *gasp* politicians. Ostensibly, a politician's "integrity" should be obvious through the policy decisions they make (unless you're worried about graft, but that doesn't seem to be an issue here, or with Spitzer, or Clinton, etc.). The question, then, is whether what a person - even a public figure, like a politician - does in his or her private life, assuming it's legal, is any of our business. I would say the answer is no. If it turns out Barack Obama likes to dress up in Michelle's clothes (that'd be a funny mental image!), who cares? Private should be private. That said, this South Carolina dude clearly does not have the capacity to make proper decisions if his affair is causing him to jaunt off to South America without telling anyone, leaving his entire office (and the whole state?) wondering where he is and who's in charge. He also doesn't seem smart enough to be in charge if he actually thought he'd get away with just disappearing out of the country for a few days, like no one would notice...

Maybe in terms of the climate…..but in terms of the economy….I don’t agree. Spend, spend, spend seems to be the way of this president. What happened to capitalism? If you fail you fail. I was talking about the environment. The economy is complicated, and frankly the first big bit of "spend spend," as you called it, was done by Bush's Treasury Secretary, Paulson, who basically made $700 billion evaporate into a black hole and then asked for more. (Ie, he actually said that we should give him the money but no one should be allowed to ask where it was going. What kind of retardation is that?) @JB: This is why we need publicly funded elections with minimal or no lobbying contributions! I wish Lawrence Lessig's Change Congress campaign would work, though I have my doubts.

I don't doubt it. Obama has not done much so far. The difference, I would say, is that nowadays the public is much more interested in climate change (hence this discussion on CC.com?). And the Bush administration went out of its way to deny climate change existed and try to open up more public lands for oil drilling, end protection for endangered species, etc. Obama might not be progressive, but conceivably he at least will not actively make things worse. Re: greenwashing: nice stats - that's a huge part of the problem. I sometimes read the Unsuitablog which covers greenwashing tactics. (Eg, "green airlines" or "green oil companies.") The whole "green industry" seems (in the mainstream) to purely be making people feel better about doing the bad things they already do. I have yet to hear a public figure say that if people want to help America and the environment, they can stop buying cars (and driving!), turn the heat down in their house, stop eating meat, never take disposable cups/utensils/etc. from restaurants, never take plastic shopping bags, etc. Seriously, if Obama went on TV and said, "Hello America. If you want to reduce your impact on the environment, then no one should buy a new car this year. And reduce your meat consumption to only a couple of servings per week." - people would lose it.

This just gets dumber and dumber. It would've at least been interesting if he had been hiking the AT... Sanford admits affair

Also that rant was mostly an excuse to try out my new avatar. Booyah.

Because a D is in the white house, of course. The media will save it's dire global warming talk for whenever (if ever) an R is back in power. Why do you say that? The current administration seems much more likely to accept and act on climate change than the previous. I think everyone is just sidetracked by the economy. The problem I have is that even when people are talking about the environment and conservation and stuff like that, the official public message is always "keep buying, keep using and consuming, just buy/use/consume these newer, better things." It's the whole "green industry" boom. All that stuff still requires energy to make, it's still disposable and unnecessary. No one is publicly saying to use less, do less, etc. "The American way of life must be preserved," or some such nonsense. The "American way of life" is wastefulness.

I think that can be filed under "They're selling our lifestyle - do we care?" The real problem I have is that this watering down of the designs means that Patagonia makes climbing jackets that do not fit people with wide shoulders and narrow waists! WTF is that??

Forgot to elaborate on this: the problem is not necessarily that they're catering to a different audience (obviously the hardcore climber sector is not where the money is), but the fact that what they are actually trying to sell is an idea - this extreme, outdoor "lifestyle." In Patagonia's case, it's complicated because it's somewhat clear that they are basically trying to sell as much as possible to fund their non-business environmental initiatives (which is cool and all); however, their catalogs made the switch about 2 1/2 years ago to looking more like some sort of surf/outdoor magazine with J. Crew advertisements. Again, this is not necessarily a problem ("designer" clothes are obviously selling a lifestyle), but these outdoor companies are selling our lifestyle (do we care?), and more importantly, when the focus is on propagating the lifestyle trend, conveying an idea of "sport" or whatever, the designs and attention to functional detail suffer. This is what has happened with North Face et. al as everyone has already pointed out. Naomi Klein's book No Logo has a really good point about how the stock market crash of Black Monday (1987) forced big companies to shift their focus away from selling commodities (which are subject to supply and demand, etc.) to selling brands. I think this is really the crux of the "real" outdoor company issue. Feathered Friends is pretty much selling sleeping bags and jackets; the North Face is selling the North Face.